Technocratic initiatives in governance of MGNREGA & ICDS

In Context 

Recently ,The issues related to Technocratic initiatives in governance of MGNREGA & ICDS  have been highlighted in some studies .

• A recent article by Tapasya of The Reporters’ Collective highlights some alarming technocratic proposals for ICDS

About Initiatives 

• Poshan Tracker
  • In 2021, the Union government launched the Poshan Tracker, a centralised platform, to monitor all nutrition initiatives, including Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). 
  • Rolled out by : the Ministry of Women and Child Development through National e-Governance Division (NeGD).
    • Technology under Poshan Tracker is being leveraged for dynamic identification of stunting, wasting, under-weight prevalence among children and last mile tracking of nutrition service delivery.
  • Significance 
    • The Poshan Tracker is a job-aid to the Anganwadi worker for efficient delivery of services along with reflection of their efforts. It is a critical and beneficiary-centric service delivery 
    • Poshan Tracker is an important governance tool. 
  • Issues 
    • As per Union government circulars, the updating of Aadhaar of ICDS rights-holders, including children, on the Poshan Tracker is mandatory, and subsequent Central funds for supplementary nutrition to States is being made contingent on this. 
      • Nearly three-fourths of children between the ages of 0 to 5 years do not have Aadhaar cards, and Supreme Court orders specify that children cannot be denied their rights for lack of Aadhaar. 
        • The government has responded saying that only the Aadhaar of mothers need to be authenticated at Anganwadis. 
      • However, it does not provide any data or evidence to show how many “fake” or “ghost” children there are. 
      • Study reported that biometrics of 42% of the users don’t work on the first attempt. 
      • As per the recent National Family Health Survey, 36% of children under the age of five are stunted and nearly one-third of children in this age group are underweight.
        • These are pre-pandemic numbers and this would have worsened since the pandemic. 
      • In such light, creating new hurdles for children — migrants or otherwise — and young mothers to access food in the name of digitisation appears cruel. 
      • It is also unclear what impact such a move will have on the psyche of a child whose mother’s Aadhaar authentication fails. 

• National Mobile Monitoring Software (NMMS)
  • It  was launched by the Minister of Rural Development  in 2021. 
    • It permits taking real time attendance of workers at Mahatma Gandhi NREGA worksites along with geo-tagged photographs.
      • As per the order, the app will record “two time-stamped and geo-tagged photographs of the workers in a day” which “increases citizen oversight of the programme besides potentially enabling processing of payments faster.” 
      • The app helps in increasing citizen oversight of the programme.
    • It is aimed at bringing more transparency and ensuring proper monitoring of the schemes. 
  • It is applicable for the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA workers for all the States/ Union Territories.
  • Issues 
    • Recently some studies articulated  the perils of  NMMS 
      • MGNREGA workers could complete their share of work and leave. 
        • This gave them time for household work or for other work that gave them supplementary income. 
      • The app makes this hard as they have to now stay back at the worksite even after completing their work only to get photographed and geo-tagged. 
      • Even from a hard economic standpoint, this move deters workers’ contribution to the GDP. 
      • The attendance at worksites is taken by Mates who are usually local women in charge of worksite supervision.
      • Now, Mates have to carry smartphones which many don’t own. 
        • Many Mates are forced to take loans to buy smartphones to use the app. 

Other Concerns 

• Both these technocratic initiatives point to a digital avatar of panopticon with no evident positives for the rights-holders. 
  • The sense of being constantly watched induces fear among people.
  •  This normalizes and exacerbates the power asymmetry between the rights-holders and the government as the rights-holders begin to internalize and accept this form of coercion. 
• Moreover, the rights-holders will be made to take the blame for technical reasons blocking their participation. 
• This further alienates and erodes the political capacities of rights-holders who usually get addressed in patronising terms such as “beneficiaries.”
•  In the process, violations of dignity get buried in the calculus of technocracy and opacity of government actions.
• The right to live with dignity is a constitutional imperative. However, it rarely manifests in discussions surrounding digital initiatives in governance.
  • Centralised data dashboards have become the go-to mode for assessing policies, relegating principles such as human dignity and hardships in accessing rights to its blind spots. 
    • Often when technological glitches prevent one from accessing rights, there is a tendency to make the rights-holder feel responsible for it.  
• NMMS failures plus other impediments such as unstable network connectivity are likely to discourage women from MGNREGA work. 

Conclusion & Way Forward 

• the Indian state has put so much weight behind ‘seeing’ its people, the majority are unable to see and scrutinise government actions.
  • Democratic dictum suggests that people should be able to ‘see’ the state clearly, not the other way around. It is the dignity and trust of people at stake otherwise.
• The cases of corruption in MGNREGA need to be addressed. But for that, social audits need strengthening instead of making already overburdened women struggle more.
  • Reasons for poor utilisation of funds should be analysed and steps must be taken to improve them. In addition, actions should be initiated against officers found guilty of misappropriating funds.
  • The participation of women and backwards classes must be increased by raising awareness and making it more inclusive.